Let Isaiah begin! This chapter is a great pre-cursor to the chapters to follow.  Nephi explains why he like the words of Isaiah, as well as the fact that he likes to bring people to Christ. Interesting in verse 3, Nephi says he'll send the words of Jacob to his children for the purpose of reinforcing his own words.  The reason being b...

Oh, man...  I'm still reeling from the video I watched earlier tonight.  I've gotta read my scriptures, though, so.... Here we go. From verse 3 to verse 6 causes me to ponder various questions. If Jesus Christ is the Christ of only this world, then these verses tell us only of the wickedness of the particular nation which crucified ...

As some of you know, in addition to running this site, I also run a site called ldscompanion.org Today, I was rummaging through some of the artwork submitted by my users, when I found this piece. The artwork is well-done, and presents a Biblical message as well as a URL.  Well...  Not being familiar with the URL, I decided to see wh...

About a month ago, our bishop told us that the fast offering fund for the poor people in our ward is running low, and that we should consider giving a generous offering. I thought we should definitely consider doing so, but in the end, I forgot all about it. Today, however, our Bishop dedicated the entire sacrament meeting to the topic of sacri...

The first verse which caught me in the reading of the last half of 2nd Nephi 9 was verse 39. The question came to mind:  "Why would God need to have us "remember" the awfulness of sin?" ...  Well...  The answer is quite simple, really.  Because Satan laces all sorts of lies within the temptation of sin.&nbs...

Before I even begin reading this chapter, I've gotta let you know that this chapter intimidates me.  It is so doctrinally rich, I'm seriously getting anxious just thinking about having to decipher its contents here and now.  I know this anxiety is unfounded because I know that God answers prayers, and I've prayed, so... Let's get to it. ...

As I read this chapter, I found the question in my head, "why was Nephi prompted to put Isaiah in here?" One thing I'm noticing in this chapter and the last, is the writing style of Isaiah is quite starkly contrasted against the writing of Nephi.  It's wildly poetic. I enjoyed this chapter as much as I did the last.  I didn'...

I wrote for 2nd Nephi 6, that I was having a hard time understanding Isaiah.  Well...  This chapter is nothing but Isaiah, and I thought it was very beautiful. Verses 1-3 are poetry. I immediately thought of a person asking the question: "Where is the Lord now, during my time of suffering and trial?"... ...and this chapter...

I was gonna read something spiritual tonight, but I got sidetracked by American Idol. I started surfing around and before long, I came upon this video which, to me, is both absolutely amazing and freaking hilarious at the same time. I had no idea (although I'm not surprised) that so many people were doing remixes of his song "We Are Brot...

I think this is the first time I'm not really inspired at all to write anything. This is frustrating because I can tell there's a lot of meat to this chapter.  I guess it's partially because I really am not into the whole "gathering of Israel" thing.  That's horrible to say because it's such an integral part of the whole plan ...

This past Thursday, we finally decided to rip it up.  I mean, literally - rip it up. Then, we decided to take it out the backyard to see what the heck was clogging it all up. It was just as we suspected.  Collin had flushed a freaking toy cell-phone down our toilet! and yes, we took the toilet out in the backyard, twisted it, turned it...

 So, this chapter was a bit like the last, only worse.  Blood, carnage, war, and death throughout pretty much every verse. One of the beginning verses, though, caught my attention.  The one that says that people couldn't go to sleep at night, without losing their treasures, even to the point where they had to sleep with weapons to ...

 So...  I thought I'd be going to bed, but here I am. When the Spirit directed me to come down and write down my testimony, I wasn't (and still am not) quite sure what to write.  This certainly isn't due to a lack of testimony comparative to other times I've done this, but rather quite the exact opposite.  It is because my tes...

To tell you the truth, I didn't get much out of the scriptures tonight.  There was a verse from which I thought I could derive meaning. Verse 15. The ax depends on him that wields it for its strength.  Alone, it is nothing but wood and metal.  Used by a person, it can become a powerful tool.  Same thing with a saw. I took ...

Brother Packer's talk about everyone in the church being the same, and no office being more important than the other was very inspirational to me this conference, along with Thomas S. Monson's talk about Sister Patton and the talk he gave in 1969 concerning her and the death of her son in the Navy. I feel inspired as I sit here listening to the l...

 So, I used to use the -dumpaudio switch in mplayer to get audio extracted from random videos, but now that seems to do not much of anything.  I found this site which had a great explanation of how to get it done a different way, but was a bit out of date.  The newer version is found below: mplayer -vo null -ao pcm:file=audio_file_...

Today's not over, but while the kids are taking naps, I thought I'd see what I could do to write about this day so far. First off - I *love* Monterey.  Last night, I don't think I got a whole lot of sleep, but notwithstanding that, I still woke up in an incredibly good mood due to the crisp salty air, the perfect temperature (around 60-68 deg...

Reading these two chapters didn't leave me with much spiritual insight, as I didn't understand much of it. That said, I did, however, really feel the Spirit while reading them.  I yearned to know what the words meant.  I wanted to study them more....  Oddly enough,  I find myself wanting to study them more, yet kind of scared ...

"...and his hand is stretched out still." I love that phrase.  To me, it's just another way of saying, "I will be here for you, no matter what you do or where you go.  I will always be here for you." What a comfort that is, knowing there will always be someone there for you.  I know it is for me, and I've felt...

 Today, I woke up at 6:00am, after getting a maximum of 4 hours of sleep (and it would only be 4 hours if I wasn't woken up in the middle of the night multiple times, which I was, so it was actually less) I prayed before I went to bed that I would be able to survive the day and get everything done that needed doing. Anyway, I woke up at 6,...

Interesting Alma used the phrase "my heart began to sicken" when he heard about what the Zoramites were doing.  That is such a descriptive word, and I can almost feel what he described as I read... I also find verse 5 interesting at this point in my life.  It seems that Alma confirms that sometimes, when moved upon by the spir...

This chapter was good to read.  I felt the spirit quite a bit.  Some insights I had this time around were interesting... I really wish I knew how much Alma knew about the Gospel before he was converted by Abinadi.  Regardless of how much he knew, it's interesting that each decision Alma makes with his little city of people he broug...

Yup...  I'm one of em'.  I'm a geek.  I'm probably not as geeky as the geekiest of geeks, but I've managed to stay employed as a computer programmer for more than 5 years now.  I also spend pretty much every moment of my spare time on my computer at home.  I have geek friends and ... well...  I enjoy technology.  ...

Ya know...  The first thing that hit me while beginning this chapter was this:  How in the world did Noah get selected to be king? I mean, really.  Verse 1 lets us know Zeniff had at least two sons.  Could his other son be that much worse than Noah was?  Burning a prophet of God at the stake?  C'mon...  I w...

Reading through Alma 60 and 61, I can vividly imagine what it would be like to live in times like those.  I imagine the cry for freedom being heard through the streets, as neighbors and friends decide to take up arms in defense of our right to worship how we want, and for the protection of our families, traditions, and way of life.  Putti...

Wow...  Moroni doesn't mix words, does he...  Reading this through as much of an objective filter as possible, I'd say there's some serious judgements going on.  Moroni blatantly calls Ammoron a "child of hell", and tells him that his brother went to hell.  heh...  Pretty gutsy, if ya ask me.  Going off of wh...

Imagine for a moment you had no idea about the atonement of Christ. Now imagine you sitting there and listening to what I have to say. And the first thing you hear are the words, "God demands perfection for salvation." Not sure about you, but for me, that creates a sort of sinking feeling inside...  I put "perfection an...

 This was a good chapter.  Starts out stating that worthiness is necessary in order for baptism into the Lord's church: bringing forth fruit of worthiness (not entirely sure what this means, specifically) having a broken heart and contrite spirit, showing a witness of true repentance taking upon yourself the name of Chris...

Heh....   My wonderful 3-year-old daughter Luci loves to sleep with her parents.  Her dad doesn't sleep very much anymore, and because of this, he has to watch his caffeine consumption or he'll get addicted to it. Heh.... Caffeine...  That brings up some interesting history. Due to my personal beliefs and what people taught me...

Very interesting that they took the time to tell us that Ammon not only rehearsed what King Benjamin said to the Nephites, but that he then explained it to them that they might understand it.  Not sure why that struck me this time, but it did. (verse 3) According to verse 13, a man who can look into and see (and translate), is a seer.  ...